Dan Fumano: As crowded mayoral race's latest entrant, Wai Young aims to stand right out

As Wai Young stepped, accompanied by a violinist, into this year’s unusually crowded Vancouver mayoral race, she set herself apart.

The former Conservative MP for Vancouver South launched her campaign Thursday outside city hall with an event decidedly unlike those of her already declared competitors for the city’s top job, as she combined press conference, campaign rally and entertainment.

Most other candidates’ campaign launches have addressed the media and a few senior party members and campaign workers. Young announced her campaign to dozens of supporters, who periodically burst into applause during her 20-minute speech.

“Folks,” Young said, using the preferred crowd greeting of Doug Ford, the right-wing populist incoming premier of Ontario. “We know that city hall is broken. Big business, developers, unions, special interest groups: They have been running our city.”

Young, who’s leading an upstart party called Coalition Vancouver into October’s election, described the Vision Vancouver-led government of the last three terms as an out-of-touch civic administration that ignored “seniors, children, families, youth, small businesses and, most importantly, taxpayers.”

“Folks, have you noticed the increase in homelessness?” Young asked. “The increased dirt and the inner city decay that is in our city? The increase of garbage cans overflowing? The needles on the streets, in our parks, in our playgrounds?”

“Can the same old municipal parties from the past fix the city hall that they broke?” Young asked, to which some crowd members replied “no.”

Young’s event included more theatrical flair than her competitors. Before and after Young’s speech, Rosemary Siemens — whose Twitter bio describes her as a “Canadian Violin Sensation” who’s played the Vatican and Carnegie Hall — played over instrumental versions of pop songs. The candidate approached the podium backed by Katy Perry’s buoyant Roar, and after her speech, she walked away into a supporter’s embrace to the mournful strains of Sam Smith’s Stay With Me.

A table full of campaign materials included not only buttons and postcards, but also fortune cookies. Inside this columnist’s cookie was the slogan of Young’s political campaign: “Working 100% for people, not politics.”

Observers have noted that while Vancouver’s 2018 mayoral race is longer than usual on candidates, many of its campaigns have been short so far on policy debates and ideas — beyond vague pledges to improve accountability and affordability.

But Young’s introductory speech included some specific campaign pledges and policy ideas, though they were of a narrow focus.

Every campaign promise in Young’s speech involved cars, and reversing what she called the current administration’s “radical, agenda-driven war on transportation.” She pledged no bike lanes will be built under her watch unless another bike lane is removed, criticized the planned removal of the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts, and promised free parking on Sundays.

“As mayor, I will free the roads,” she said.

More policy initiatives, including ideas on housing, will come as Coalition Vancouver’s campaign rolls on, Young said.

It’s a message that will resonate with a segment of Vancouver voters.

But a candidate like Young, “a staunch federal Conservative who served under Stephen Harper,” may have trouble with the broader Vancouver electorate, pollster and Research Co. president Mario Canseco told Postmedia last week.

A Research Co poll released last week found Young had the lowest level of support among eight mayoral candidates. When asked who they would vote for if the election were held tomorrow, only three per cent of respondents picked Young, compared with 26 per cent for first-place Kennedy Stewart, an NDP MP who represents the opposite side of the federal political spectrum from Young.

Young appears undeterred by such poll numbers. As her campaign launch’s announcement reads: “Wai has every intention of winning.”

The same Research Co. poll also found 47 per cent of respondents were undecided, an unusually high level this close to an election.

Further, 57 per cent of voters didn’t turn out in Vancouver’s last election, Young pointed out Thursday, adding: “We’re going to get all of those votes and we will win.”

Canseco said Young could take votes from other centre-right candidates, particularly Ken Sim, the mayoral nominee of the Non-Partisan Association, which has historically attracted the city’s conservative supporters.

Coalition Vancouver will also run a slate of candidates for council, park board and school board, with those nominations to be confirmed later, said party president Peter Labrie, a former NPA director.

After Young’s speech, she fielded questions from reporters for seven minutes, before an aide stopped the questioning, announcing: “OK, that’s it, sorry guys.”

This Week's Flyers

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.